Tour of Britain 2014

Pross

madasahattersley wrote:

Alex is a lovely guy and an awesome rider with a huge future but I don't rate his bike handling skills too high. I've had to bunnyhop over him before in a situation that shouldn't ever have resulted in a crash.

I helped get him off the road when he crashed in the National RR while someone else dragged his bike out of the way. He touched a wheel on a fast descent but it was a dead straight road and only a small group so you could be right. Great rider though and will hopefully get a chance to move up a level soon.

Paul 8v

That's why young riders should be forced to ride cyclocross in the off season, learn how to handle a bike properly ;-)

Poor sod though, probably the most high profile race he's been in all year and stuffs it in front of everyone :-(

andyp

Excellent, more armchair handling debates.

FWIW, I think Alex Peeters used to regularly race cyclocross when he was younger.

mididoctors

andyp wrote:

Excellent, more armchair handling debates.

FWIW, I think Alex Peeters used to regularly race cyclocross when he was younger.

Won 2 national mtb events as well came 2nd in the series, mind you he did stack it in that series one time

mididoctors

Not sure about the LondonTT crash. I suspect he just pushed it a bit. Pretty fearless noted for descending fast.

As someone said exuberance

southdownswolf

I don't think that you can question his bike handling skills because of this crash.
He admitted that he thought he had done the last corner and was on the home straight, so he had his head down all guns blazing. I'm at work, so can't post pictures of other riders at the corner. However, even as he was approaching you could tell that he was not ready for a corner. Everyone else approached it about 20ft wider and was looking at the apex. Alex had his head down, holding the aero position and it was only as he actually got to the corner that he realised that their was one corner left. By then, it was too late. No time to brake and no chance of getting around the corner at the speed he was going. He was lucky he looked up when he did, or else it could have been a lot worse.

frenchfighter

narbs wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

So the no name rider wins this Tour? Good for him I suppose, hopefully he does something next year. Would have liked the aggressive Kwiatek to win. Haven't watched any of the race other than a few km from Vermote's win.

I know you like to have a joke, but why bother commenting when you've not watched any of it?

And as pross says, Kwiatkowski would have been a "no-name" in your eyes last year.

Well I read the reports and followed the results. A no-name one and my original comment was not a joke. Majority of proper stage races are not won by chance or neo-pros. He may turn into something ridiculously special but I highly doubt it. Kwiatkowski was not a no-name last year...take a look at his palmares. Wiggins could only dream of that.

frenchfighter

Macaloon wrote:

my Wiggo banner

For real?

andyp

frenchfighter wrote:

Kwiatkowski was not a no-name last year...take a look at his palmares. Wiggins could only dream of that.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good one.

Oh wait, you're serious aren't you?

frenchfighter

Yeah possibly a bit harsh. Point being that last year Kwiatkowski would have been better than 95% of the World's cyclists.

mididoctors

frenchfighter wrote:

Yeah possibly a bit harsh. Point being that last year Kwiatkowski would have been better than 95% of the World's cyclists.

I was probably better than 95% of the worlds cyclist... maybe still am, ok pedant.

Anonymous

frenchfighter wrote:

Yeah possibly a bit harsh. Point being that last year Kwiatkowski would have been better than 95% of the World's cyclists.

I mean he has never won a world tour race, his biggest win to date is a world tour stage race. His best GT finish is 11th.

Wiggins in 6 months won 3 world tour stage races, a tour de france and an olympic gold medal.


I'm sure he was craving that prologue win in Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen

wombly_knees

frenchfighter wrote:

Well I read the reports and followed the results. A no-name one and my original comment was not a joke. Majority of proper stage races are not won by chance or neo-pros. He may turn into something ridiculously special but I highly doubt it. Kwiatkowski was not a no-name last year...take a look at his palmares. Wiggins could only dream of that.

Tis surprising that he's won a big race like this already. But he was one of the best U23 riders last year. Not surprising seeing him do well, although the win was unexpected. He is a big talent.

gpreeves

frenchfighter wrote:

Yeah possibly a bit harsh. Point being that last year Kwiatkowski would have been better than 95% of the World's cyclists.

I agree that Kwiatkowski would have been a bigger name at this point last year, 2013 was a bit of a breakout season for him - 113th to 30th on the CQ Ranking.

If you compare his results with van Baarle at the same age, the two could be on a similar trajectory, although it's maybe too early to say (especially with a sample of two). VB's clearly a talent, but his performance next season will be most instructive. Here's a graph:

andyp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRkoM6YFsko

A new angle. Where's the bloody team car?

phil s

gpreeves wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Yeah possibly a bit harsh. Point being that last year Kwiatkowski would have been better than 95% of the World's cyclists.

I agree that Kwiatkowski would have been a bigger name at this point last year, 2013 was a bit of a breakout season for him - 113th to 30th on the CQ Ranking.

If you compare his results with van Baarle at the same age, the two could be on a similar trajectory, although it's maybe too early to say (especially with a sample of two). VB's clearly a talent, but his performance next season will be most instructive. Here's a graph:

Kwiatkowski stepped up to WorldTour in 2011 not 2013, so it's like comparing apples with pears. Age not really a factor IMHO as it's more about race opportunities.

gpreeves

phil s wrote:

Kwiatkowski stepped up to WorldTour in 2011 not 2013, so it's like comparing apples with pears. Age not really a factor IMHO as it's more about race opportunities.

Agreed, hence my caveat about the small sample size.

I would argue that points/age does tell you something though, the number of race opportunities (and therefore points) at a certain age probably tells you something about a rider's ability.

frenchfighter

Lots of photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishcycling/

frenchfighter